In the field

Every once in awhile I like to bring readers up to date on the lives of my daughters and fellow blog writers (Eliza and Carrie) when they may not be near computers to make their own entries.

Eliza is living in Conway, New Hampshire this month studying to be certified as a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician. Here is a description of one of her days. I should warn anyone who is squeamish (you know who you are) to skip ahead.

"Today I had my last clinical rotation at Memorial Hospital in North Conway. First thing in the morning, there was an adorable three year old kid who'd taken a spill off his scooter and cut his upper lip, so I stood with the family (including their 6-month-old baby who had had 3 open-heart surgeries) and watched as this kid toughed it out through four stitches. The parents were really talkative and generous about letting me be part of the "action." Next up I watched an older guy w/ stomach cancer get an IV put in, and get hooked up to drugs that negated his painkillers, which was disturbing - watching the gradual dawn of pain on his face, from peaceful sleep to awake and grimacing.

Then a thirty five year old man was wheeled in from the ambulance. He had been skiing with his wife and friends at Wildcat, and ran into his buddy whose ski edge sliced his lower thigh.  The result was (Mom don't read on) an eight inch laceration of the skin and muscle down to the bone.  So, blood oozing out everywhere (not an arterial bleed, so oozing rather than spurting). Luckily this guy was totally cool and the cut was deep enough that he wasn’t in much pain. I basically watched the entire process from triage to surgery prep, and then, they let me into the SURGERY!!! I was sent into the locker rooms to change entirely into scrubs, head to toe, with booties and hair thing and mask and gloves and all, and then I went into the operating room and helped monitor/assist the surgeon throughout the whole thing. The surgery took about an hour total not including prepping and wrapping, and I saw a lot of blood and a massive gaping hole in this guy's thigh being dug into by the surgeon. It was an intense hour."

For a break over the weekend, Eliza climbed Mt. Washington with friends. I like knowing that this evening, she is back in her room, curled up with her books, studying for the exams at the end of the week.

Carrie is in Georgia, by the Black Sea. She is there to evaluate several programs on domestic violence and human trafficking. This trip is the culmination of a semester long project at Columbia where she will soon earn a degree in International Public Policy. Here is a recent email.

"Georgia is beautiful in a crumbly, ancient way. The streets snake up into tall mountains and are twisty and have no names. Tiblisi is a lot like other European cities, but everything is covered in graffiti and all the buildings lean in on each other and into the streets because they are so old. But when you walk by a window and look in, you see a cheerful apartment full of plants and bright colors. Most people live in Soviet era tenement style housing. The organization we are working for is run by a group of women activists who are working mostly on increasing women's participation in politics and raising awareness about issues like domestic violence and trafficking. They are very accommodating and kind, and have shown us all around and want us to understand Georgian patriarchal culture and recreational alcoholism. We have about four meetings a day with different NGOs working on these issues, which so far has been very interesting.

This country got an anti domestic violence law only a few years ago. It's 30 or 40 years behind the rest of the world. Stalin is from here! We are going to his birthplace sometime this weekend."